Guilty of giving ‘bad gifts’? Don’t worry, there is a way to make them good...
From socks to smellies and mugs to candles – who hasn’t given one of these normcore items as a present? There’s a reason for that, says Fleur Britten, they are convenient... but that doesn’t mean they can’t be gorgeous too – just follow these rules
Panic rose in me recently as I read new research revealing this year’s top 10 unwanted Christmas gifts, among them socks, chocolates, bath smellies and alcohol. As I cast my eye over the blacklist – “clothing, mugs, candles, home accessories…” – I realised, to my horror, that I have literally given every single item in recent Christmases. Was my lazy gifting responsible for some of the estimated 55,3934,286 “bad presents’’ received by “long-suffering Brits” last Christmas, as the report, commissioned by Not On The High Street (NOTHS), claimed?
You can hardly blame us, though – sometimes something generic (a bottle of plonk, a potted plant, chocs) feels more appropriate than something creepily specific for someone you don’t know well. And frankly, buying Christmas presents is such a headache, it’s not surprising that we surrender to normcore. Indeed, many of the report’s items feature on my own wishlist – I’d far sooner receive sensible/boring/useful gifts than pointless gimmicks for the sake of a short-lived smile and a box ticked. The point is that, with a little thought and careful sourcing, it is actually possible to turn bad gifts into good ones, to make it look like you actually care. Here’s how to buy fail-safe this Christmas, whatever your budget.
Socks
The fact that socks were at the top of NOTHS’s flops feels unfair, until I remembered that someone once gave me some with a baked bean design. My gifter’s mistake was not to plump for cashmere - if you know you know (if you don’t, think warmth, luxury and cloud-like softness). I also happily receive Bam’s bamboo socks, a pretty respectable poor gal’s cashmere.
Luxury list: Loro Piana cashmere socks, £130
Mid-range marvel: Marks & Spencer cashmere socks, £30
Budget beauty: BAM bamboo socks, £6
Clothing
Unless buying for an identical twin, or for someone who really doesn’t care what they wear, gifting clothes is high risk. Pyjamas are your way through this – your lucky recipient is going to spend a third of their life in them, and always behind closed doors. If blessed with a big budget, consider silk or cashmere (again!). Of course, they’re astronomically expensive and (gasp) dry-clean only, but there are some gorgeous brushed cotton alternatives.
Luxury list: Johnstons of Elgin cashmere PJ set, £975
Mid-range marvel: The White Company brushed cotton pyjama set, £75 (see above)
Budget beauty: H&M brushed cotton checked pyjamas, £32.99
Bath products
Giving someone impersonal bath products is potentially the ultimate platitude in gift form. However, most of us could do with switching up our bathing routine – maybe your giftee doesn’t know that a magnesium-salted bath soak soothes muscles and aids sleep, or that a splash of bath oil (ideally administered the day before your cleaner comes) leaves you luxuriously moisturised, or that aromatherapy can turn around a bad mood.
Luxury List: C.Atherly bath box in geranium No 1, containing bubble bath, bath oil and bath salts, £100
Mid-range marvel: Anatome muscle ease + skin-restoring bath salts from A Little Find, £30 (pictured above)
Budget buy: Westlab sleep bathing salts from Holland & Barrett, £7.50
Beauty gift set
The thinking behind gift sets is that surely something in the package will hit the spot, even if it doesn’t all work out. That’s all well and good, so long as it doesn’t look like you won it at last summer’s church tombola. A winning gift set needs to look like it’s been chosen for its recipient – for example, maybe they’re a beauty or hair obsessive, always keen to try new products.
Luxury list: the all-day beauty kit by Selfridges (19 hair and beauty products), £100 (pictured)
Midrange Marvel: Cult Beauty Christmas hair care edit 2023 (10 products), £40
Budget buy: The Body Shop nutty & nourishing shea treats gift set (2 products), £8 (above)
Mugs
Does anything say “I haven’t thought enough about this” more loudly than the wrong mug? That’s because the market is overrun with novelty naffness, and the temptation to buy a quick fix and get Christmas shopping over and done with is too irresistible. The right mug does not feature royalty, slogans, heat-sensitive paint or cutesy animals. It needs to be beautiful and useful, and ideally mindful of what the recipient likes to drink.
Luxury list: Ember smart mug 2 with temperature control, from Amazon, £129.95 (above)
Midrange marvel: pair of Bodum double-walled glass mugs, £19.95
Budget buy: John Lewis Leckford stoneware mug, £5
Candles
I have an entire shelf of scented candles ready for rehoming, so ubiquitous are they as generic gifts. The key to getting it right is either to buy something too good to regift because it’s so beautiful or original, or comes with a reusable holder, or because you can light them for dinner and make a big day more of an occasion – while thinking fondly of your tasteful benefactor.
Luxury list; L’Objet birdcage candle and holder, from Liberty, £165
Midrange marvel: Spicer & Wood honeycomb beeswax tall pillar candle, £28 (pictured above)
Budget buy: La Redoute pair of twisted dinner candles, £4.25
Chocolate
Personally, I’d accept any sugar-based gift, unless it’s fake chocolate-flavoured chocolate or trad Victorian confectionery – the likes of sugared almonds, marzipan fruits and marrons glaces, which surely no one born beyond 1900 wants. Christmas is an opportunity to give something that your recipient might not normally try – for example, the new Terry’s Chocolate Mint (yes, please), award-winning vegan chocolate (yes, please), or the thrill of a box containing nearly 100 luxury chocolates (yes, please).
Luxury list: Marcolini three-drawer gift box, £115
Midrange marvel: Friars’ Kakoa vegan chocolate box, £25.99
Budget buy: Terry’s chocolate mint, the perfect stocking filler from Sainsbury’s, £2
Alcohol
We all have a dusty corner in our drinks cabinet where the unwanted bottles gather, many of which look like they’ve already done the gift circuit a few times. The trick here is to try and buy as special as you can afford (no Aldi) and personalise it to your recipient’s taste. I particularly like the idea of spreading your bets with a cocktail subscription service, where each month they’ll be sent ingredients for different recipes.
Luxury List: The Cocktail Society subscription service, from £120
Midrange Marvel: Fortnum & Mason bellini box, £38
Budget buy: Waitrose San Leo prosecco DOC 2-unit bottle, £2.99
Home accessories
Union jack cushions, granny lampshades, empty picture frames requiring people to get photos printed…It’s hardly surprising that charity shops (and probably landfills) are chocka with these duff gifts. Proceed with caution here, and bear your recipient in mind – the person who has everything won’t need a 37th vase. However, they may be amused by, say, the Hoptimist, a piece of iconic 1960s Danish “happiness-inducing design”. The avocado-lover (isn’t that all of us?) might enjoy keeping one as a houseplant, and the wine-lover might enjoy a kit that repurposes empty bottles into herb gardens.
Luxury list: Hoptimist mega bumble figurine from The Conran Shop, £95
Midrange marvel: Ilex Studio avocado vase from Etsy, £42 (pictured above)
Budget buy: bottle top herb planters from Waterstones, £10.99
Practical household items
I have in my kitchen what I call the waste-of-space cupboard, which has accumulated all my unloved “practical” gifts: the candy-floss machine, the chicken crockpot, the chocolate fountain – for some reason, people seem to think that practical presents should be something you’d never buy yourself, but that logic obviously doesn’t stack up. Instead, I’d use the opportunity to introduce people to technological advancements – the USB-chargeable lamps, the new gen of steamers that can almost replace ironing and – finally – an improvement on ugly bag clips.
Luxury list: Flos bellhop portable lamp, £195.50
Midrange Marvel: Philips steam & go plus handheld garment steamer,£75
Budget buy: cat bag clips from Oliver Bonas, £5
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